Epic of Beowulf Essay - Prosody of Beowulf -- Epic Beowulf essays

Prosody of Beowulf The prosody of Beowulf is the art of Old English versification, made to be chanted orally, not read silently. Therefore it uses initial rhyme and accent to achieve the poetical effect which Modern English poetry achieves through the use of poetic feet, each having the same number of syllables and the same pattern of accent (Wilkie 1271). Theory on the prosody of Beowulf is evolving. In the manuscript version of the poem, alliteration is employed in almost every line (or two half-lines) in most modern translations of the poem this is not so. In lines 4 and 5 of the poem we find oftentimes Scyld Scefing sceapena preatum monegum maegpum meodo-setla ofteah The repetition of the s sound in line 4 and of the m sound in line 5 illustrate alliteration, and this occurs throughout the poem, providing to the listener an esthetic sense of rightness or pleasure. In 1958 two language scholars, Lehmann nd Tabusa, produced an alphabetized list of every alliterated word i n the poem. One translator, Kevin Crossley-Holland, in his version of the poem in Literature of the Western World, actually includes considerable alliteration (Wilkie 1271). The Old English poet would tie the two half-lines together by their stressed alliteration (Chickering 4). The prototypical half-line is called the on-verse, which is followed by the off-verse. Each line of poetry ideally contains four principal stresses, two on each side of a strong medial caesura, or pause, and a variable number of less-heavily stressed or unstressed ones. At least one of the two stressed words in the first half-line, and usually both of them, begin with the same sound as t... ...ed by Joseph F. Tuso. New York, W.W.Norton and Co. 1975. Kiernan, Kevin S.. The Legacy of Wiglaf, In The Beowulf Reader, edited by Peter S. Baker. New York decorate Publishing, 2000. Magoun, Frances P. Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry. In TheBeowulf Poet, edited by Donald K. Fry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968. Stockwell, Robert. P. and Donka Minkova. Prosody In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, nor-east Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997. Tharaud, Barry. Anglo-Saxon Language and Traditions in Beowulf. In Readings on Beowulf, edited by Stephen P. Thompson. San Diego Greenhaven Press,1998. Wilkie, Brian. Beowulf. Literature of the Western World, edited by Brian Wilkie and James Hurt. New York Macmillan Publishing Co., 1984.